Registration is now open for twelve public courses that are being offered by HKU’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre this spring.

The courses, which will be taught in May and June, are intended for journalists and other working professionals who would like to acquire new skills or add to their existing knowledge of news writing, production, publishing and technology.

The courses will cover a range of topics from fundamentals like effective English-language writing to advanced subjects like data journalism, one of the new tools made possible by the digital age. Technical skills including documentary filmmaking, video shooting and editing, photography, and how to build and manage a website, will also be taught.

Registration is online at public-courses-2013. Registration deadlines and quotas vary. All of the courses are open to the public.

Instructors for the courses come from a variety of backgrounds and offer a wealth of professional experience.

Oscar-winning director Ruby Yang will teach a course on digital editing and documentary post-production. Yang won an Academy Award for her short film, The Blood of Yingzhou District, which follows a group of children in China’s Anhui province whose parents died after being diagnosed with AIDS.

Irene Jay Liu, news editor for data at Thomson Reuters, will teach data journalism. Students in the course will learn how to mine large numbers of documents for hidden information that can lead to news stories, and how to present those stories to an audience online. Liu led the recent launch of Reuters’ Connected China, a groundbreaking new website that tracks the changing relationships among China’s governing elite.

Other instructors include Chan Pui King, former Editor-in-Chief at Next Magazineand freelance reporter for the Center for Public Integrity; filmmaker Nancy Tong, who served as an associate producer and production manager for the film Who Killed Vincent Chin?, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1989; Lauren Dockett, an Honorary Lecturer at the JMSC and former Executive Editor for Columbia University Press; and Barry Kalb, who has been a journalist for over 40 years and covered many major stories including the Watergate scandal and the death of Mao Tse-tung.

Registration is now open for twelve public courses that are being offered by HKU’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre this spring. The courses, which will be taught in May and June, are intended for journalists […]